Page turner overdrive

Fully Booked: cover art & design for books

Die Gestalten Verlag, £37.50, €49.90

Books are never just books. They can be catalogues, toys, models, play centres, showcases for bindings, gatefolds, special papers and card and portfolios of design. Some of them might even be worth reading.

Fully Booked: cover art & design for books (Die Gestalten Verlag, £37.50, €49.90) is another monster compilation edited and designed by Robert Klanten and Matthias Hübner. Apart from the short essays by Katherine Gillieson and Maria Fusco, the focus is on the work, lots of it, by a diverse selection of graphic designers from Jenny Grigg (see Eye 65) to David Pearson; from H55 to Grey 318. There are books wrapped in all kinds of material, from raincoat fabric to the cassettes, egg boxes and floppy discs that Erin Zamrzla uses for her blank sketchbooks. And there are books full of cuts and holes that really want to be sculptures, such as Olafur Eliasson’s 00 Your House. But that’s not for reading. MS